| NEWS |
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| ...and Updates |
| As always, feel free to email me at wkargel@yahoo.com |
| June 13th, 2002 |
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| Well, things are going day-by-day in the Kargel household following the loss of our infant son Royce. We have our good days and our bad days, but have so far seemed to have managed OK. We are doing our best to move on with our lives. We are traveling to Jacksonville next week to visit with Bridget's sister and her husband, Sarah and Edgar. (P4250003a.jpg) As you know, they had a baby boy Sammy six days before Royce was born. This will be the first time we have seen our nephew, and our first real test emotionally after Royce's death. Being so close in age, Sammy is going to be a constant reminder to us of the son we have lost. Not that it is his fault or anything, it is just the way it is. Perhaps the good thing that will come out of this is that we will transfer the energies we would have devoted to Royce into Sammy instead, even though we won't see him as much. Sort of living vicariously as parents through our nephew instead of our son since he is gone. More on that later. We are also going to be traveling to Pennsylvania in July for a week to visit with Bridget's mom & dad, Gus & Carolyn Reinwald. This is our first real vacation in over a year, and is sorely needed. One of my musical projects, the progressive rock band PARACELSUS, is the opening band at the first ever Rogue Music Festival in Atlanta on July 27th! Please go visit the official websites for both PARACELSUS and the festival for more info! |
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| Hello all. After much an extended period of neglect to update this site, I am pleased to announce MASSIVE updates! Please go see the new Sammy's Picture Page, as well as the new Gaming Page and Favourite Movies, TV and Books pages. I have also added some new pics to the Family page. We have returned from our stay in Jacksonville. While it wasn't the easiest experience for us, we managed very well. Despite everything, we did enjoy spending time with our new nephew Sammy. He IS a cute kid! We both got to do the mundane stuff like feeding, changing and bathing him as well. In a way, it made us wish even more that we were able to do these things with Royce if he had been there with us. My brother-in-law Edgar is the president of a local Jacksonville gaming club called the Jacksonville Garrison. They were hosting a mini-con at the Borderlands store the weekend we were visiting. I got to learn a couple of new games, and played an enjoyable wargame I had never played before. I will hopefully elaborate more on these games once I have some content for the Gaming Section of this website. More to follow soon. There is finally some increased activity in my musical endeavours. Besides rehearsals with PARACELSUS and our upcoming gig at the Rogue Music Festival, I will soon begin rehearsals with some other area musicians. The style will be progressive hard rock, with a bit of AOR and modern rock in the mix. Probably will be cover songs in the short term, but long-range plans are for original music. We need to find a couple more people before we get into that. The guitarist in this project is none other than my good friend Jon Colston, one of the most talented guitarists I have ever had the pleasure of meeting! You can visit Jon's website by going HERE. Stay tuned for details! I am also soon meeting with Berklee-trained Atlanta guitarist Ken Barr and hopefully jamming with him a bit. We have been discussing over phone calls and emails this past month about the feasibility of a different musical project, something that should prove to be very unique yet also entertaining. Congrats to Ken and his fiance Kimi...they got married in May! Again, stay tuned! And would you believe that I still have long-range plans on making a solo album of music someday? However, I am very excited right now about all the bright musical prospects on the horizon! Looks like the Beatles were right when they wrote that life goes on... I still miss my baby, though. |
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| June 1st, 2002 |
| July 9th, 2002 |
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| July 3rd, 2002 |
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| We are headed for Pennsylvania for a week to visit with Bridget's mom & dad, Gus & Carolyn Reinwald. This is our first real vacation in over a year, and is sorely needed. See you after July 16th! More updates then! |
| Nesidioblastosis. That sinister-sounding word is the common name for the condition that our son Royce was born with, according to the pathologist's report. That's right. We finally have the results of the autopsy. To make a long story short and using as few medical terms as possible, nesidioblastosis is a relatively rare condition. In a nutshell, the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin don't know how to shut off producing. This explains why they had such difficulty controlling his blood sugars once he was born. It also explains why we thought (at first) that Bridget might have been an undetected gestational diabetic. The increased insulin output from the nesidioblastosis mimics the increased output of insulin a baby would produce in utero in such a situation, and the physical side effects are similar: large birth weight, etc. We will never really know exactly how much damage was done and when as far as the rest of Royce's problems are concerned, but there was definately some ill-effects from the actual delivery. The report noted that the infarcts in his brain were quite numerous and diffuse, so severe brain damage was highly likely as we suspected, but the autopsy revealed that the true extent of the potential damage, which was considerably more than even the MRI would have showed. The actual cause of death determined by the pathologist was septic shock from the infection he was suffering from on his last day of life. It was caused by a bacteria in his intestines that lives inside all of us. However, because of his special state and weakened condition, this was an infection of an opportunistic nature. When we were considering the likelihood of having to remove Royce from support, we had been told that it was entirely possible that Royce would survive without the respirator, as he had been breathing on his own and was only getting a little help from the respirator. However, the infection had compromised his ability to breathe on his own, he was dependent on the respirator by the time we actually made the decison to remove support. Though he may have stopped breathing and dies as a result of this, the pathologist's report suggests as weakend from the ordeal as he was the infection was bad enough that it may have killed him anyway without removal of support. Now, here is the kicker. In extremely rare instances (so far documented), there is a genetic cause for nesidioblastosis. It has to reside in a recessive gene, and both parents have to carriers for this "defective" gene. Even then, there is a 1 in 4 chance of a child actually developing the condition. The pathologists has strongly urged genetic counseling for Bridget and myself, as evidence supports that Royce's condition may have been genetically caused. If this is true, then that means there is a 1 in 4 chance per occurance that any other children we have may also develop nesidioblastosis. That is the bad news. The good news is, that since we now know this is what Royce had, they also now know what to look for in future pregnancies. Nesidioblastosis is, in fact, treatable. If drug therapy doesn't work, the worst-case scenario is the partial or total removal of the pancreas. Of course, total removal also means the child develops insulin-dependent diabetes and would also need certain enzyme supplements for the rest of his/her life. But there are so many people that live relatively normal lives with this. We can therefore derive some comfort in knowing that if this was all little Royce had to deal with, that there was an eventual solution to his problem, and he could have led a normal, happy life filled with love and laughter. Sadly, the brain damage precluded any hope of this, not to mention the infection that developed. I will eventually transcribe the autopsy report and post it on this website. As I said before, Bridget and I plan to try and have children again. But, we are going to wait a little while. My parents had a tree panted in Royce's memory at a local park in Florida. It is a crepe myrtle with a dedication plaque with Royce's name inscribed on it, and is in view of a children's playground. It seemed very appropriate to us. ******************** I previously reported about getting a band together. Well, unfortunately that has died a horrible death. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I felt that I was so close to achieving the ideal working situation for the band project I have had planned all these years. Now, I am not sure if it will ever really happen. It is jsut so difficult finding the right people to take part in this...different personalities, the right level of skills, similar musical tastes, etc. It's almost like alchemy...in fact, my dream band is like that age-old alchemist's dream of turning lead into gold. Perhaps it is a folly, after all. Other than PARACELSUS, I may end up working with another band as a bass player/singer, but otherwise I think I will now concentrate on further developing my guitar-playing skills in order for me to write my own songs on guitar and then can perform them solo in an acoustic setting, along with some piano-based music. It seems that that solo album may be closer to realization than I had previously planned. |